Читать книгу Rage - Peter Golenbock - Страница 13

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SUPERSTAR IN THE MAKING

I WAS A STARRY-EYED EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD FLYING FROM Middletown, Connecticut, to St. Petersburg, Florida, for the two and a half months of Instructional League play in September of 1964. I had never been on an airplane before. I was a little anxious and didn’t know what to expect. A couple of friends told me that when they flew from Hawaii to Vietnam, they imagined what was going to happen when they hit the ground. I figured that going to Instructional League had to be easier than going to Vietnam.

The purpose of the Instructional League was severalfold: A young pitcher on a major league roster might go down there to learn another pitch; a young major league hitter might go down there to learn to hit to the opposite field; and for top prospects in the minor leagues, it was a chance to get some excellent instruction and compete against high-caliber players.

Because my father insisted that the Instructional League be put in my contract, I would be the only player without a single inning of pro experience.

When I got there, I was surprised and shocked to see that there were several pitchers who could throw as hard as, if not harder, than I could. And they had more polish, because they had played some Single-A ball.

When I walked into the clubhouse, I was met by Eddie Stanky, the head of the minor leagues for the Mets. Eddie had been a star second baseman for the New York Giants under another shit-stirrer manager, Leo Durocher. Stanky took one look at me, and the first thing he said to me was “You’re fat.”

I had spent the summer eating hot fudge sundaes and drinking milk shakes, adding weight, because I was told that I should bulk up before going to camp. What no one told me was that the added weight should be made of muscle, not flab.

“First thing we have to do,” Stanky said to me, “we have to get you in shape.”

Stanky gave me a nylon shirt with a rubber inner lining, and he put me through an exhausting regimen of sprints and pickups. Day after day, Stanky, or another coach, made me field 100 balls in the Florida heat while wearing that goddamn rubber shirt. Slowly, but surely, my weight dropped from 220 pounds down to 180.

Stanky was a great, great instructor, but he was also a ballbuster. One time he took me to dinner. I thought, Great, free food. We got in his car and he drove us to downtown St. Pete, where we stopped at Morrison’s Cafeteria.

I walked down an aisle of food past hundreds of different items, and as I pushed my tray along, I figured I’d order a couple of hamburgers, some ham, and a little potato salad, but then Stanky stopped me.

“I’m going to order for you,” he said, and he ordered me a plain piece of chicken and a salad, and for dessert he said I could have a little cup of Jell-O or a little cup of fruit. That was my dinner with Eddie Stanky. And I hadn’t yet pitched a game.

Where were the mashed potatoes? Where was my chocolate cake?

Eddie had been a firebrand, and in one of the first pieces of advice he gave me, he told me, “When you look at pitching, consider a loaf of bread. If you get the hitter out, then that loaf of bread goes to your family. If you don’t get him out, the batter’s family gets the loaf of bread.”

Stanky also told me I would never become a major leaguer unless I learned to throw a batter a first-pitch breaking ball for a strike.

“And you have to learn how to pitch under pressure,” he said.

I was warming up just before I was scheduled to start a game. Eddie walked up to me and said, “Okay, first pitch, curveball.” He squatted down beside me. I threw a curve; it was way out of the strike zone.

Later in the season when I was playing in the minors for Single-A Auburn, Eddie visited, and he asked me, “Have you gotten any better throwing first-pitch breaking balls for strikes?”

“Yeah, I have,” I said.

“Let’s find out,” Eddie said. “I’ll give you a $300 sharkskin suit if you throw a first-pitch curveball for a strike.”

The first batter stepped in. I threw a curveball. “Ball,” said the umpire.

I didn’t miss by much, and I didn’t get my sharkskin suit.

The first game I pitched in my professional career was against the Washington Senators’ Instructional League team in Plant City, Florida. I struck out the first batter on a fastball eye-high—he wasn’t a professional. I walked a couple of batters, but got out of the inning without giving up a run.

A couple of days later Johnny Murphy, the general manager of the Mets, invited me for a bullpen session. Murphy had been a star pitcher for the New York Yankees during the 1930s and 1940s, seven times leading the American League in wins by a relief pitcher. John had pitched in eight World Series, and he was meeting with me to tell me he didn’t like my pitching motion because I fell off the mound after every pitch.

John taught me to drag my back foot as my pitching arm came forward. Dragging the back foot had been part of the Yankee way of pitching. By dragging the back foot a pitcher is forced to bend at the waist, compact his motion, and keep from falling off the mound.

John was wearing a sport jacket and tie and cordovan shoes as he showed me what to do. After I tried it once, Murphy wasn’t satisfied. He grabbed my glove, motioned for the catcher to come halfway, and demonstrated the technique, dragging his expensive leather shoes through the dust.

After Murphy’s pitching lesson, I returned to the dugout where my manager, Don Heffner, said to me, “It’s obvious to me that Johnny Murphy really likes you.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because he just ruined a hundred-dollar pair of shoes to teach you that motion.”

I was so green that I didn’t know how to sign a baseball. I picked up a box of balls and signed them, but the next day I was called into Don Heffner’s office.

Don said, “Let me explain something to you. If you look at a baseball, the place for the team’s superstar or the manager to sign is where the seams come closest together. The other players sign somewhere else on the ball. You haven’t even played a game yet. You might want to think about signing on the stitches.”

“I didn’t know,” I mumbled.

Soon after Murphy’s lesson, Jerry Kraft and I combined to throw a no-hitter against the Detroit Tigers’ Instructional League team. I pitched five innings, Kraft pitched two. My performance focused even more attention on me.

My Instructional League experience was drama-free. I pitched pretty well that winter.

In one game against Minnesota, a hard-hitting team, I was batted around pretty good, but by the next time I faced them I had become more secure with my new motion of dragging my trailing foot as I delivered the ball home. Then, in a game a few days after Thanksgiving, the New York brass, including Johnny Murphy and Eddie Stanky, came down to watch their prospects. I pitched four innings of one-hit baseball against those same Twins, striking out seven batters.

I returned home to Middletown, Connecticut. I was inspired to stay in shape, so I worked out five days a week at the Wesleyan University indoor college facility. When February rolled around, I reported to Mets’ spring training minor league facility in Homestead, Florida, just south of Miami. I worked out with the Williamsport team. The Mets were hoping I could start my career in Double-A.

Homestead wasn’t a town for nineteen- and twenty-year-old baseball players. It’s probably why the Mets picked it. It had an army base and not much else. Manager Solly Hemus, another hard-bitten old-timer, had no curfew. One night a number of my teammates and I decided to drive to Miami and have some fun at the Fontainebleau Hotel.

Tug McGraw, his brother Hank, Kevin Collins, Terry Christianson, and I had a good time drinking and dancing. On the way back, somewhere south of Miami at two o’clock in the morning, we saw a sign for The Marina.

“Hey, let’s check this out,” said Tug. Hank, our driver, headed for the wharf.

From the distance we could see a large, black shark, hanging from a hook. Tug had an idea. We walked to the dock. Tug asked the fishermen on the dock if they wanted the six-foot-long creature. One of the fishermen asked, “Unless you cut it up and eat it, what are you going to do with it?”

Tug, with a gleam in his eye, asked the fisherman if we could have the shark. We had all been drinking, so that probably had some effect on our decision making.

The five of us lugged the smelly, oily, ugly, scary, toothy, leathery, three-hundred-pound sea creature over to our car and put it into the trunk. The shark’s head and tail hung out the back of the trunk, but it was so heavy that the shark was in no danger of falling out. We drove back to Homestead with the shark in tow.

We knew that Joe McDonald, the Mets’ director of scouting for the minor leagues, liked to get up early in the morning and swim in the hotel pool. Joe was very pale—we called him the “White Ghost”—but we liked Joe well enough. Tug decided—with my encouragement—to invigorate him for his swim. Under the dark of night we placed the lifeguard stand into the deep end of the pool and stood it up with the armrest just below the water. Then we dumped the dead sea monster, with the big, jagged teeth, into the water and sat it on the armrest of the submerged lifeguard stand. Satisfied with our work, we went to bed.

At seven o’clock the next morning, my three roommates and I were awakened by blood-curdling shrieks of horror coming from the pool area. We leapt up, expecting to see a frightened Joe McDonald, only to learn that a church bus filled with senior citizens had beaten him to the pool. The church folk had jumped in, and when they looked up, they were confronted by “Jaws” staring them in the face.

“Oh, shit,” we said to each other.

Sheepishly, we drove to training camp. We sat in the dugout, waiting for the other shoe to drop, when Joe McDonald confronted us.

“I have a pretty good idea who did this,” he said. “I’ll go a lot easier on you if you just admit to it.”

The White Ghost called us the “Five Irish Mafia.” He paced up and down until he stopped directly in front of me. He looked me up and down, kept on walking, then stopped and stared at Tug. He stopped in front Hank, in front of Kevin, and in front of Terry, and of course we were the five involved. We ran all afternoon as punishment.

One of the teams we played during Mets’ spring training was the University of Miami. Ron Fraser, the longtime coach of Miami, kept calling the Mets, asking if they would play an exhibition team against his talented college kids. Finally, Joe gave in.

The Miami team traveled to Homestead, and the three pitchers who manager Whitey Herzog chose to throw against them were three of his best minor league prospects.

Before the game I was standing with Tom Seaver, who had played at the University of Southern California. Tom was interested in what kind of team the University of Miami was fielding, and was curious how they would fare against some of the hardest throwers they would see all season long. Tom had a boyish way of giggling and laughing, and he was saying to the Miami players, “Wait until you see our guys.”

I got along really well with Tom. He didn’t have a big ego. He was funny, very cerebral. He was a California guy, a college guy, and he was far more mature than I was.

I didn’t hang out much with Tom because he was married to his college sweetheart, Nancy, and after games Tom went straight home. Nancy was sweet and charming.

Against Miami, Whitey pitched Dick Selma for the first three innings. I pitched the second three innings, and a skinny eighteen-year-old by the name of Nolan Ryan pitched innings seven, eight, and nine. Selma threw real hard, and then I came in, and when Nolan’s turn came, he blew them all away. Nolie was a twig, but his wrists were as big as his waist. He threw 100 miles an hour; his fastball clocked at 100, his curveball clocked at 100, and his changeup clocked at 100.

Those Miami college kids couldn’t hit Selma or me, but they had never seen anyone like Nolie. Those poor guys; I’m sure that after the game they went back to Miami asking themselves, “Is there any way we can play another sport?”

The Mets decided that I was still too raw to begin my career in Double-A, and rather than send me to Williamsport, they assigned me to Single-A Auburn, in upstate New York. Auburn played in the New York-Penn League. I hadn’t been hit hard in the spring, but I didn’t throw a lot of strikes either, and I had yet to master my new pitching mechanics.

When I arrived in Auburn, I focused on becoming a major league ballplayer. I made sure I got my rest, at least at first. I would get to bed early two days before I pitched. The night before, I might go out and have a drink or two with my buddies, but it was only a couple of drinks, and then I was off to bed.

All I wanted to be was a major league ballplayer. That was the expectation I had for myself. I had read all the articles about my potential, and I was determined to fulfill that promise. I knew I’d only get one shot, and I wanted to make the best of my opportunity.

In one of my early starts for Auburn, I pitched against the Wellsville Red Sox. When I warmed up, I had great stuff. My ball was tailing, my curve was sharp, and I was throwing strikes. I started the game with two strikeouts, but then I couldn’t get anyone else out, and manager Clyde McCullough had to come to the mound to get me. I went into the clubhouse, had a beer, then another, then another, and by the time the game was over I was tipsy. After the game, McCullough called me into his office. Not only was I drunk, but I was feeling sorry for myself, down in the dumps, and despondent.

Clyde and I both were staying at the Auburn Hotel. Clyde was another old-timer. Twenty years earlier he was the scout who had brought Jackie Robinson to speak to Branch Rickey before Rickey signed Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers and break major league baseball’s color barrier. Clyde had a world of experience, and he saw how uptight and nervous I had been, and he wanted me to relax and not be so grim about my job.

Clyde said to me, “I’m going to be in the lobby at five o’clock in the morning, and if you come in one minute before five, I’m going to fine you one month’s salary. I don’t care what you do, but it would be best if you went out and had a good time. Here are the keys to my car. See you later.”

“Okay, Coach.”

I spent most of the night drinking, and I came in as the sun was coming up. I spent much of the rest of the next day throwing up. I had my washboard abs from throwing up after drinking too much. That day was as painful as any day I ever spent. I drank some chicken noodle soup, but not much else.

I arrived at the ballpark, and Jimmy Callahan, our trainer, told me that Clyde wanted to see me. I walked into his office, and Clyde looked up from his desk, and he said, “You look terrible.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I wouldn’t mind if you let me stay in the clubhouse during the game and sleep it off.”

“I’d like to,” Clyde said, “but you’re pitching tonight.”

I went out and pitched six innings, which was as far as I could go before keeling over. It was my first win in pro ball. Clyde’s message to me was that I was too uptight. I was too focused on making it to the big leagues. I wanted to win too badly, and I needed to relax.

“I don’t want you doing this before every start,” he told me, “but every so often between starts you need to go out with the guys and have a few beers and relax.”

Clyde was warm, sincere, and funny.

He told a story about how he had once played for the Chicago Cubs. It was opening day and he was out in the bullpen. It was so cold, he said, that he and a number of the Cub players carried glass flasks in their back pockets, and they’d take a nip every so often. He was called on to pinch-hit in the eighth inning. He went up to the plate and hit the ball off the ivy of the Wrigley Field outfield wall. He slid into second base, and he could feel something warm running down his leg. It was the whiskey. The flask broke into pieces during his slide.

“I spent the next two hours in the training room pulling shards of glass from my ass,” he said.

I loved Clyde. He was as good a manager of first-year players as you could find in the game. He was easygoing and had an infectious smile, and yet he’d give you the rough-tough voice when he felt he needed to. He was a real players’ manager.

I kept my nose clean during my year at Single-A Auburn, though I did find myself at the wrong end of a gun.

One night, Bob Johnson and I decided to drive from Auburn to Syracuse to have some fun. Bob was a starting pitcher with tremendous potential, but he was also a magnet for trouble. He had a long scar along the side of his face, and he told me that one time in Chicago he got caught up in a race riot. He also had had his front teeth knocked out.

He was a nice guy if he liked you, but if he didn’t like you, watch out! For example, Bob developed a burning hatred for the scout who had signed him. The scout had given him $10,000 to sign, but then gave another pitching prospect, Dennis Musgraves, a bonus of $100,000. Bob, Musgraves, and the scout were together in the Instructional League one year, and Bob and the scout were watching Musgraves warm up.

“You gave that motherfucker $100,000 and only gave me $10,000!” Johnson said to the scout. “My changeup is faster than his fucking fastball. I ought to kill you,” he said as he chased the terrified scout into the clubhouse.

We arrived in Syracuse and drove to a strip club where we began drinking zombies, which contained ten different types of liquor. If you could drink five zombies, the drinks were on the house. Clyde McCullough had shown me that I could get good and looped and still pitch, and so Bob and I both decided we’d accept the zombie challenge.

There was an acrobatic pole dancer performing, and she did things on that pole that I haven’t seen again to this day. She could flip over and do things that are hard to describe. Bob and I were drinking pretty heavily, and he started talking to this pretty young stripper who was sitting at the bar, and before I knew it, Bob said to me, “This gal is going to go back to Auburn with us.”

“How is she going to get back to Syracuse?” I wanted to know. Syracuse is a good twenty-five miles from Auburn.

“Who gives a fuck?” Bob said.

Bob and I, with the stripper close behind, headed for the parking lot. I started to open the car door when a man with a gun jumped out from behind a car.

“What are you doing with my wife?” he wanted to know. “What’s going on?”

Bob and I were standing together, and the man pointed the gun first at Bob and then at me. Both of us had the same bright idea: When the gun was pointed at the other guy, we’d attack him. The gun was pointing at me when Bob made his move. Bob was catlike, and he punched the husband in the face before the man could pull the trigger, knocking him out cold. The woman ran off, and Bob and I jumped in my car and drove back to Auburn.

In the newspapers the next day it was reported that a man had been attacked by two men who broke the man’s jaw, his collarbone, and his nose. But, in reality, it was only one man.

The Single-A Auburn team would travel from town to town by bus. The bus didn’t have great air conditioning. Clyde would sit in the front of the bus, wearing a shirt and boxer shorts. On the trip from Auburn to Jamestown, the longest of the season, I walked to the front of the bus and said, “Skip, a couple of the guys and I have to take a piss.”

“Good idea,” Clyde said. “I have to take a piss too. I’ll show you how to do it.”

“You guys thought we were going to stop,” he said in a loud voice. “We’re not going to stop.” He was laughing when he said it. Then he said, “We can’t afford to stop the bus. We have to get to the game.”

“So how do we do it?” I asked.

Clyde walked down the two steps leading to the door of the bus and had the driver crack the door open, and he peed out the opening as we traveled down the highway.

“That’s how you do it,” Clyde said. And when any of us had to pee, we did the same thing. I often wondered what the cars traveling behind us must have thought when streams of urine splashed across their windshields.

Under Clyde’s supportive tutelage, I finished the year at Auburn with a thirteen-win-and nine-loss record. It was a great learning experience. I pitched in the rotation on a regular basis. Clyde let me pitch. I pitched well even in the losses, most of which were close games.

Against Jamestown I was pitching a perfect game going into the bottom of the sixth inning. The opposing pitcher was up, and I ran up a three-ball-and-no-strike count. Clyde called time and came to the mound.

Clyde said, “For God’s sake, if you’re going to lose the perfect game, don’t walk the son of a bitch.”

My first pitch after that was a strike, and my second pitch was a strike, and on the third pitch, the Jamestown pitcher hit a line drive back up the middle that struck me in the face. I was knocked out of the game, and for a couple of days my face was swollen. Oh yeah, I lost my perfect game.

Once I got the okay from the doctor to play again, my next challenge was to pitch without fear of getting hit by a batted ball. The first time back on the mound, I pitched and ducked, pitched and ducked, pitched and ducked, until Clyde came out to the mound to talk to me.

“You can’t pitch that way,” he said. “Throw naturally.”

I hadn’t realized what I was doing. Clyde got me through the game, and I had a terrific year.